ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTS - Lonely Water (1973)
An infamous PIF from 1973, one of the most well known PIFs... probably ever. DESCRIPTION: The camera pans over a dirty, mud-filled river, clogged with fallen trees and branches as we see a ghostly black-cloaked figure (played by Donald Pleasence) say: "I am the Spirit of Dark and Lonely water... Ready to trap the unwary, the showoff, the fool... and this is the kind of place you'd expect to find me", says the voiceover. "But no-one expects to find me here. It seems too ordinary". '' We see four kids playing around in a muddy area of a murky pool, as one of them sees a football in a big pool of water and tries to reach it with a stick Spirit: "''But that pool is deep, the boy is showing off..." We see the spirit walk behind the four children "...the bank is slippery" The boy slips into the pool of water as the three other children and the spirit watch. The scene then fades away to another where the camera pans over another part of a duckpond as a boy fishes near the river while holding on to a weak part of a tree "The showoffs are easy... but the unwary ones are easier still. This branch is weak, rotten, it will never take his weight." The branch snaps and the boy falls into the pond as the spirit watches from afar. The camera fades to the next scene as it zooms out of a sign that says "DANGER - NO SWIMMING" "Only a fool would ignore this..." The camera pans over some old and rusted junk and the bed has been riddled with traps "But there's one born every minute. Under the water there are traps, old cars, bedsteads, weeds... hidden depths. It's a perfect place... for an accident" The camera stops panning as we can see a boy struggling to swim and shouting for help. Girl: "Oi, look, there's someone in the water!" The spirit looks onwards at the boy drowning but turns around when he hears the girl Spirit: "Sensible children!! I have no power over them!" He disappears leaving only his cloak behind. The girl runs over to the drowning boy and rescues him. She also tramples the cloak. The camera fades to the next scene where the girl and her brother walk with the boy who was drowning before. The girl's brother: "Oi mate, that's a stupid place to swim... Hey go over there and get him that thing (the cloak) to wrap him in (to the boy) You don't half feel cold mate, how long was you in there?" The girl runs over to the spirit's cloak and picks it up. Girl: "Ugh! Horrible thing!", in a strong London accent She then throws it in the river. As the cloak drifts away from the land the spirit says his iconic line Spirit: "I'll be...back!" MUSIC/SFX: There is no music. And the only time we really hear sound effects other than the characters talking is when something falls into the water. AVAILABILITY: Uncommon, seen on a few YouTube channels SCARE FACTOR: Medium to Nightmare, The unnerving tone of the spirit is bad enough but the scenes where the children fall into the water can be especially frightening. Category:Nightmare-rated PIFs Category:United Kingdom Category:Safety PIFs Category:PUBLIC INFORMATION FILMS MADE BY THE COI Category:1970's PIFs Category:1973